


Waiting On A Word

by Leonawriter



Series: Chimney-Soot Steps, All The Way To The Stars [2]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Canon Lesbian Relationship, F/F, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-05 13:21:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11578911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leonawriter/pseuds/Leonawriter
Summary: When Bill realises that the Doctor might not have been as gone for good as she'd thought, she decides to go back to Bristol to see if he reappears. She owes him a proper goodbye, even if nothing else.





	Waiting On A Word

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally meant to have a scene at the end, which was half done when it ended up being deleted by accident. I might still be able to re-write it at some point - I really hope so, because that one scene was most of why I wrote this in the first place. But for now, I like the bits with Bill and Heather enough that I want to share them anyway.
> 
> That said, it was also done with the intention of it being slightly AU to the canon episode, wherein the Doctor was fully healed by Bill's space engine oil tear, so he's able to go places a bit before the events of the Christmas Special start.

It's hard not to be distracted, now. She can't even blame herself for it, either - here she is, serving chips again, when she could be out there, travelling the stars with her girlfriend.

 _Girlfriend._ Wow, that's still new. Even a few months going around touring time and space couldn't get rid of how  _new_  that felt. 

Bill catches herself smiling, which is great, but she really needs to focus. It wasn't like she'd come back to work as a chip girl for fun, after all. There was a  _reason_.

 _You saved me, made me back into me again,_  she'd said to Heather one day, as they sat on the top of a space station and watched the workers in their space suits float by, kept from flying free by the equivalent of ropes and cords.  _If it weren't for the Doctor, I wouldn't even have got that far. He saved my life - so many times._

She could still remember shivering from the memory of the  _last_  time she'd been out in space without a suit or a helmet to protect her. Heather reminding her that the way they were now, they weren't in any danger. And then, the sudden thought to ask if her tears landing on the Doctor might have done anything to  _him_ , and Heather shrugging.

 _My mum always told me that if I was lost,_ she'd said, starting to think,  _I should stay right where I am. Or go someplace someone'd know to find me. At least, that's what I always thought she'd say. It makes sense, though._

Figuring that might work this time, or even that it was what she thought she needed to  _do_ , had still taken a few different encounters - some friendly and some not so - where Bill was  _sure_  they were talking about the Doctor -  _her_  Doctor, not any of the others, like the one someone'd said had raced through their market stall like a, well, a thing that sounded like it was a drunk giraffe wearing a bowtie, or the one that'd had the locals freak out because he was wearing so much  _white_ , that they apparently associated with death, and a weird vegetable attached to his clothes. A few mentions of someone calling himself 'Doctor' in a blue box and going on about  _broken promises_  was plenty enough to make her suspicious.

She had her ideas as to who those other ones were, though. 

 _He's her_ , he'd explained to her in the barn, sitting next to her but not quite as close as she could remember them being.  _At some point he must have died, and when he did, he became her. It's called regeneration. I've done it myself. At some point, I'll need to do it again, when this body's worn too thin. I've never been a woman, though. Who knows, maybe next time that'll be me._

He'd turned to her and smiled slightly, although even at the time she'd known it hadn't been a really happy one. In his own weird way, he'd just been trying to cheer her up.

Another dish washed and put on the drainer. She reached out for the next.

...

As soon as she could after reorienting herself from not having been home or anything for over ten years, revisiting all the places she used to know so well, and she began taking the initiative a bit more.

Heather held her hand on the way up to the Doctor's office, giving her a supportive look that she'd really needed when she gathered up the courage to just  _knock_. 

The worst thing was when nothing happened. Just like the rest of the staff and students had said, he was just... gone. Ever since he'd got it into his head to test Missy. 

Heather took them through the door, just to check, but they weren't there long. Everything was exactly as she'd remembered it - the photos still there, perfectly untouched. Papers unmarked - she could see her last one there on the pile by her handwriting, which was weird - and a cup of tea gone cold, another reminder that it hadn't just been her and the Doctor, but Nardole, too.

There was an empty spot in the corner where the TARDIS should be, conspicuous by its absence.

Heather tugged at her hand as she felt her throat tighten, and the next thing she knew, they were somewhere else entirely, a few thousand years into the future, where the sky rippled in different colours.

...

When they came back next, Heather materialised in the kitchen behind everyone's backs and pretended all innocent like, as though she'd not just been on the other end of the cafeteria hall with that smile of hers. 

Bill didn't think the others much believed either of them, but without suggesting she was, oh, some sort of  _time-and-space hopping water alien_ , no one could argue much, either.

She'd normally have been annoyed when she was left on her own to finish washing up after everyone, but this time she didn't mind. They made a good team - when they weren't splashing soapy water in each others' faces, and Bill wasn't laughing because it reminded her of how Heather'd looked when she'd first turned into the Pilot, and how this was way less scary or freaky. Then Heather splashed her, and said  _you're like me now_ , and they'd ended up kissing in St. Luke's kitchen, Bill smiling just like she had the first time, dishes forgotten for a minute or so.

_I still don't understand, though. Out of everyone, she chooses me._

Not a bad thing, though, just something more to smile and thank her lucky stars over.

...

A few days later found them standing in front of the vault the Doctor had kept Missy in, Bill feeling just a bit silly over how nervous she was just to be  _near_  that thing - the last time she'd had anything to do with that woman, she'd ended up converted into a  _Cyberman,_ and from what the Doctor had said, that wasn't the worst she, or he, had ever done - because she was like Heather now, right?

Heather squeezed her hand, and Bill knocked.

This time, she felt guilty to be  _relieved_  that nothing happened, even after a few minutes.

It really was just an empty box behind a door in the basement of the university, now. Nothing scary about it.

She hesitated as they were about to leave, though, a thought crossing her mind, a question that suddenly needed to be answered.

"You know how when you were first trying to find me, and the Doctor came down here to make sure it was all secure and everything?  _Could_  you have? I mean, got in there?"

Heather considered the vault doors for a moment, but then shrugged, turning back to face Bill.

"Dunno. Wasn't really after whatever was in some dusty old vault, was I?"

"It was kinda a 'who', not a 'what'."

Which was  _weird_  to think about, now - she hadn't known at the time, though she had wondered what could be so important. After their discussion on the roof that one day before Missy's test that'd gone to hell in a hand basket, it kinda made more sense. 

"That's what I was thinking, too," Heather says, a smile in her eyes, and Bill takes her hand again, thinking  _I'm glad you came back_ , and not for the first or last time.

...

They run into Penny not long after, in between kitchen duty and something infinitely more interesting, because of sudden cravings for Earth chocolate, which, despite what the stalls on some alien planets in the far future said, the taste was  _never_  going to be as authentic as it was bought straight from the supermarket

It was awkward, at first. If she was honest, Bill would say she was worried because it might look  _kinda_  like she'd been cheating, and with an extra ten (now a bit more than ten) years since they'd last seen each other, it'd taken until now to remember that they'd been talking about having a quiet movie night in someday.

It was a relief when everyone was properly introduced and everything was explained, there weren't any hard feelings.

"You know," Penny said once things had calmed down some, "I think it's all for the best anyway. I don't think we would've worked out. No offence, really! Just, I don't think I could keep up."

"What with world powers crashing our dates?"

"Don't even  _remind_  me," Penny said, covering her face with her hand somewhat. But they both ended up laughing, and drawing Heather in when Bill realised that she didn't know what'd happened, and then explaining about the whole incident with the Doctor saying that the  _first_  time they'd tried for a date, it'd been crashed by the bloody  _Pope._

Through trial and error, they still manage to end up having their movie night in, though it's probably nowhere near what they'd first planned for it being, with Penny being the only properly  _human_  human left in the room, the three of them watching  _Guardians of the Galaxy_ , and the three of them spending half the movie laughing at the inaccuracies - mostly Heather, pointing out that no ship would work without this or that really scientific thing - and singing along to the soundtrack.

It'd been ages since she'd felt this nice, this happy, this at  _home._  Seeing the people she cared about laughing and smiling. She didn't think she'd seen Heather smile about something that wasn't showing her another new part of the universe before, and sometimes something normal, Bill had long since decided, could be really, really important.

The only thing was, there was still something - some _one_  - missing.

 


End file.
